“I’m Inspector Montalbano, and I’d like to know—”
The cop turned visibly pale.
“I paid for this fish! I swear!” he said, voice quavering.
“I don’t doubt it for a minute.”
“So what do you want, then?”
“I want to know where I can find Signor Rizzica.”
“You can find Rizzica in one of his warehouses.”
“And which ones are they?”
“Numbers three, four, and the last one.”
“Thanks.”
“Glad to be of service!” said the officer, clearly relieved and practically running away, terrified that Montalbano might change his mind and demand that he explain how he came by that crate of fish.
In front of the open door of warehouse number three was the same Ford van as that morning. Montalbano went inside and immediately saw Rizzica, who was talking with an air of concern to a man in overalls.
The moment he saw Montalbano, however, he came towards him, hand held out.
“Let’s go outside,” he said.
Apparently he didn’t want to talk in the presence of the man in overalls. They stopped in a sort of arch to one side of the wharf that smelled of shit and piss old and new, which was why there wasn’t anyone in the vicinity.
“Did you come by because of my complaint?”
“No. Did you file a formal complaint with Inspector Augello?”
“No, sir, not formally. But it’s still a complaint.”
“Have your boats come in?”
“No, there’s another hour and a half to go.”
“And the one that’s always late, the . . . what was its name?”
“The Maria Concetta? No, today’s its day off. But tonight it would be better if they were all late.”
“Why?”
“Because one of my warehouses has been out of order since yesterday. The refrigeration system is down. You have no idea how much money it’s cost me. I had to throw all the fish back into the sea. The electrician says they’ll have to order a replacement part from Palermo. An’ just to rub it in, the two boats coming in now are full of fish; they had a really good haul today. I’m going to have to get the third warehouse up and running, the one I usually use only for—”
“But didn’t you say you had five trawlers?”
“Yessir.”
“How come you’ve only got two out?”
“I have ’em working in shifts, Inspector. Three go out, and two rest. An’ vice versa.”
“I see.”
“Listen, I have to go back inside. But about that thing I mentioned to you, Inspector Augello knows the whole story. He can answer your questions.”
“No problem. Listen, what did you say was the name of the captain of the Maria Concetta?”
“Aureli. Salvatore Aureli.”
“One more thing. Do you remember the names of the rest of the crew?”
“I told ’em to Inspector Augello.”
“Tell me too.”
“Totò Albanese, Gaspano Bellavia, Peppe Dima, Gegè Fragapane, ’Ntonio Zambito, an’ two Tunisians whose names I don’ remember right now but I gave ’em to Inspector Augello.”
No Manzella. For a brief moment, he’d been hoping.
After three in the morning, the hustle and bustle had wound down for the most part. The trawlers were no longer moored in front of the cold storage houses. By now they were all at their berths inside the port. The refrigerator trucks had also all left. The great main doors of the storehouses were all locked, except for number three, where the electricians were still trying to repair the outage. The road, however . . .
The road wasn’t entirely deserted. There were still five or six people mingling about, talking and arguing. Two of them had even raised their voices and were about to get into a tussle. If it was always this way at this hour of the night, someone must surely have heard or even witnessed the scene of Fazio running away as someone ran after him, firing his gun.
Hadn’t the Customs cop said that after hearing the two shots he’d seen a high-powered motorcycle drive past? So therefore there had been at least one witness! But these were the kind of people who would never talk, Montalbano was absolutely certain of that.
All at once he felt a crushing fatigue descend upon him, so great that for a moment his knees buckled.
There was no point in wasting any more time. He decided he would go to the commissioner the following morning and tell him the whole story, so they could officially begin the search. He threw in the towel. The crucial thing was that the more time went by, the worse it was for Fazio, assuming he was still alive.
“Montalbano!”
He turned around and found himself face to face with Nicolò Zito.
“How did you know I was here?”
“Augello told me. I rang him at home after trying without success to contact you.”
“What’s going on?”
“I have to talk to you.”
“So talk.”
“Shall we go into my car?”
He’d parked it near the slips. The early morning wind was biting hard and Montalbano, exhausted, famished, and worried as he was, began to shiver from the cold.
Once inside the car, he leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes.
He reopened them when he smelled coffee. Zito had shoved the cap of a hot thermos of coffee under his nose. The inspector rejoiced.
“How long has it been since Fazio went missing?” the journalist asked.
Montalbano choked on his coffee. Zito slapped him twice on the back to help out.
“Who told you?”
“I got a phone call and then you confirmed it for me.”
“I did?!”
“You sure did. When you shouted ‘No!’ so that I wouldn’t call Fazio’s home. That pretty much sealed it for me. I realized then and there that something wasn’t right. What was he investigating?”
“That’s just it, Nicolò. I don’t know. He was working on his own, you see. And hadn’t told anyone. Who was it that called you?”
“I can’t tell you. The guy called me and said he thought he’d seen Fazio in a bad situation.”
“In what sense?”
“His head was wrapped, as if to cover a wound.”
“Was he alone?”
“No. But let me finish. Since he wasn’t sure it was actually Fazio, this gentleman wanted me to find out. Which I did, and so I called him back on his cell phone and told him I had the impression that you had confirmed his hunch, however indirectly. And so he kept telling me to call him back in two hours.”
“Sorry to interrupt, but why didn’t you contact us right away?”
“I’ll tell you in a second. So the guy called back two hours later and gave me precise directions as to where we could find him, so that he could explain everything. Do you want to go?”
“Of course. Where is it?”
“Over by Rivera. An hour-and-a-half drive away.”
“All right, let’s get moving. Would you please tell me why you didn’t call us?”
“Because the guy’s a fugitive, Salvo.”
So why would a fugitive from justice worry about the fate of a cop? There was no point in asking any questions, however. Zito would never divulge the informer’s name.
There was, however, one good thing in all this: Fazio was still alive.
“What did you tell Augello?”
“That I urgently needed to talk to you.”
“Did you mention that it had to do with Fazio?”
“No.”
Should he phone Mimì to tell him about the new development? No, it was probably best to let him sleep. And at the sound of that word in
his mind, as if by sudden contagion, he closed his eyes automatically. And fell asleep.
He was awakened by the silence.
He was alone. It was daylight. The car was stopped along a dirt road in the open country. But all around him was not what you could really call country, only desolate, deserted land. A few stunted trees where it was impossible to tell what, if any, fruit they had ever borne, a few clumps of wild grass as tall as a man, thickets of sorghum, and a sea of white stones.
It was a chiarchiaro, as they called it in Sicilian, a hill of stone, a godforsaken place where you couldn’t grow anything and it was dangerous even to walk, since at any moment you could find yourself sinking into a hole that would widen into a great fissure plunging deep into the ground.
Montalbano knew that chiarchiari were cemeteries of nameless bones, the favorite burial sites of the Mafia. When they wanted to make someone disappear, they would take him to the edge of a hole, shoot him, and let him fall inside. Or else they would spare themselves the bullets, and just shove him into the chasm still alive, and the victim would die during the fall, crashing against the rocks, or if he reached the bottom, he could cry and yell all he wanted, and nobody would ever hear him. He would die slowly, of hunger and, above all, thirst.
To the right, about ten yards from the dirt road, was a tumbledown little one-room house, a white cube that looked merely like a rock a bit larger than the rest. Tumbledown, perhaps, but with the door closed. Maybe Nicolò was inside, talking with the fugitive.
Montalbano decided to stay in the car. He searched his pockets. There were only three cigarettes left in the pack. He lit one and rolled down the window. He didn’t hear any birds singing.
Then, when he’d nearly finished the cigarette, the door of the cube opened and Zito appeared, motioning to him to come out and approach.
“He’s ready to tell you everything, but there’s one problem.”
“What?”
“He doesn’t want you to see his face.”
“So what should we do?”
“I have to blindfold you.”
“Is this some kind of joke?”
“No. If you’re not blindfolded, he won’t talk.”
“I’ll make him talk.”
“Cut the crap, Salvo. You and I are unarmed, and he’s got a gun. Come on, don’t be an asshole.”
And Nicolò pulled an enormous handkerchief out of his pocket, red and green, like a peasant’s.
Despite the circumstances, Montalbano started laughing.
“Is that really your normal handkerchief?”
“Yes. I’ve been using this kind for a while. Sinusitis.”
The inspector let himself be blindfolded and led into the cottage.
“Good morning, Inspector Montalbano,” said a middle-aged voice, rather deep and well mannered.
“Good morning to you.”
“I’m sorry I’ve made you come all this way, and I’m sorry I’ve made you wear a blindfold, but it’s better if you don’t know who I am.”
“Let’s drop the politeness bullshit,” the inspector said. “And just tell me what you have to tell me.”
“A few mornings ago, probably around six o’clock, I was in the vicinity of Monte Scibetta. Do you know the area of the dry wells?”
“Yes.”
“I was in a car and was passing by the drinking trough, which used to have water in it. There were three people there, and one of them was sitting on the edge of the trough. The other two were on his right. The seated man had a bandage over his forehead, and his shirt was all stained with blood. Then one of the two punched him in the face, and he fell into the trough. But I’d already recognized him. Or at least I think I did. He looked to me like Signor Fazio.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Quite sure.”
“Then what?”
“I kept on driving, and in the mirror I saw them pulling him back out.”
“And what did you do after that?”
“I had to get away from Monte Scibetta, and fast, because I’d found out that the carabinieri were coming after me. So I figured the best place to hide was here. But before I got here, I called Signor Zito.”
“How do you know each other?”
“Never mind about that,” Nicolò’s voice said behind him.
“All right, go on.”
“First of all, I wanted confirmation that it was actually Fazio.”
“And when you knew for certain, why did you want Zito to tell me about your phone call?”
“Because once, with my son, Fazio showed he was an honorable man.”
“Why, in your opinion, did they take Fazio all the way out to Monte Scibetta?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know why or where they grabbed him.”
“They almost certainly wounded and captured him at the port of Vigàta.”
“Ah,” said the stranger.
But he didn’t speak.
“And so?” Montalbano asked, feeling agitated.
“Inspector, if they took him all the way out there, it was to throw him into one of those dry wells. They want to make him disappear. It would have taken them too long to bring him all the way out here to the chiarchiaro.”
It was the very answer he’d feared.
Now there was no more time to waste.
“Good luck, Signor Nicotra, and thanks,” said the inspector.
“But . . . how did you know it was me?”
“For one thing, I first heard your story a long time ago from Zito himself, who’s been your friend since your schooldays together. And then, when you said Fazio had treated your son honorably . . . well, I just put two and two together. Thanks again.”
5
Once outside the cube, he removed the handkerchief covering his eyes and started running towards the car, with Zito following behind.
“Come on, hurry up!”
“Where are we going?” the newsman asked.
“To Monte Scibetta. We haven’t got a minute to lose!”
“Stop and think for a second, Salvo. Many hours have passed since he saw him there—”
“Oh, I’m thinking all right, don’t you worry about that.”
“By now whatever they were going to do to Fazio, they’ve already done.”
“Yes, but he may still be alive. Maybe gravely wounded, but still alive. Do you know where the dry wells are?”
“Yes.”
“How far is it from here?”
“About two hours.”
“Let’s go, and in the meantime give me your cell phone.”
He called Augello, who was still asleep. But as soon as Montalbano told him what he’d found out, he woke up in a hurry.
“And you, Nicolò, should tell your friend Nicotra to turn himself in,” the inspector said to Zito when he’d finished.
“Do you know how many times I’ve told him that? It’s hopeless. The idea of ending up in jail drives him crazy. If there’s such a thing as incompatibility with prison life, he’s got it. And double murder is still double murder.”
“Okay, but he would have every extenuating circumstance in the book. For us, a cheating wife is the best extenuating circumstance there is. If you’re being cheated on, you can even commit a massacre if you want, and still get off easy. What? You mean you caught your wife in bed with your brother and you didn’t shoot ’em down on the spot? What kind of a fucking man are you? Don’t you know that with a jury made up of people with a sense of Honor, Family, Duty, and Womanly Virtue, Nicotra would surely be exonerated?”
They’d arranged to meet Mimì at the dried-up drinking trough. But when they got there, Augello and his men were nowhere to be seen.
“What the fuck are they doing?” Montalbano asked
out loud, upset.
“Well,” Zito said, trying to calm him down, “it’s going to take a little time for him to do what you asked him to do.”
The inspector fired up a cigarette. Luckily he’d found a café with a tobacco license open in Rivera and had bought three packs, just to be safe.
The first to show up were four firemen with a great big truck equipped with a crane. Apparently Augello had clearly explained to them the work they would have to do, which was to go down into some wells that had long run dry but were very deep.
“We’re ready,” said the head fireman. “Shall we go in?”
His name was Mallia and he’d listened almost distractedly while the inspector reviewed the situation for him.
“We have to wait until my deputy gets here,” said Montalbano.
“Well, we’re going to go ahead anyway and check things out. That’ll save us a little time. We’ll meet back up at the first well.”
“Do you know where they are?”
“Of course, just over a quarter mile from here. A couple of years ago I pulled a corpse out of one,” said Mallia.
A good start is the best of guides, as the poet said. Without anyone noticing, Montalbano superstitiously touched his cojones to ward off bad luck.
At last Mimì pulled up in his car. A squad car came up behind him, with Gallo at the wheel, accompanied by Galluzzo and a young new officer, Lamarca, who seemed like a bright, alert kid.
The three wells had been dug some thirty years ago, about a hundred yards apart from one another, and were linked by a sort of narrow goat track. The land, about thirty hectares in all, had belonged for generations to the Fradella family, who, though good farmers, had never been able to grow a single tree there, or plant a square yard of any kind of plant whatsoever. It was useless land, all of it. Since legend had it that long ago some brigands had raped and killed a poor peasant girl there, everyone believed that the land yielded nothing because it was cursed. And so the Fradellas summoned a hermit priest from Trapani province who knew how to fight the devil. Not even he was able to make so much as a blade of grass grow. The ground was sterile because it was arid, but perhaps only a little water would suffice to change everything. Then, about thirty years ago, Joe Fradella returned from America, where he owned a ranch, and he explained to his relatives that he knew an extraordinary diviner who could find water even in the middle of the Sahara desert. And he brought the rhabdomancer from America, at his own expense. The moment the diviner took a little walk around the area, he said:
The Dance of the Seagull Page 5
